Equal Measures
Equal Measures is the fourth episode of the Beast Wars TV series. Synopsis Optimus Primal watches a bolt of lightning shatter a mountain, revealing a cache of energon. Because of the hazardous conditions, he radios to his team to abort their current operation. The storm garbles the transmission, though, preventing the other Maximals from receiving it. The mission involves energon monitoring devices designed by Rhinox, who has just gotten done building the last of them. Impatient to get going, Cheetor carelessly plays with one of Dinobot's projects, a time bomb, and accidentally drops it out the floor hatch... where it's caught by a returning Optimus, who reiterates his order for the mission to be scrubbed. Everyone's clearly upset over the development, not believing the storm to be that severe yet, but Primal is adamant; it'll have to wait until later. Dejected, everyone returns to quarters to wait out the storm. In Cheetor's quarters, Dinobot meets with the cat-bot and endorses the mission being continued regardless of the danger from the weather and the energon. He points out that Primal clearly treats Cheetor like a child, even though with his speed, the cat-bot could easily outrun the storm and plant the devices before it hits. This appeal to vanity works, and Cheetor sneaks out to complete the mission. In the field, Cheetor plants survey apparatuses in quick succession, but a bolt of lightning causes the cat accidentally to plant one of the posts dangerously close to an energon vein. He tries to remove the device and correct his mistake, but in the middle of his struggle, a second lightning bolt hits, and he finds himself suddenly teleported — onto a control panel in the Predacon base! Terrorsaur "welcomes" Cheetor and attacks the Maximal, but Cheetor grabs a hover-platform and tries to escape. After being knocked off the platform, Cheetor lunges at Terrorsaur and pushes the Predacon onto the control panel he'd just arrived on, causing Terrorsaur to vanish. Scorponok and Waspinator arrive and chase Cheetor around the Predacon base, but lose him in the ventilation shafts. Meanwhile, Terrorsaur finds himself in the ''Axalon'' command center, where he's given a warm reception by Dinobot. However, the former Predacon is more concerned over how the pteranodon arrived, eventually working out that a freak combination of the survey devices, the storm, and the energon created a transporter link between the two bases. Using this to his advantage, Terrorsaur seems to convince Dinobot into forming an alliance, suggesting they scrap the Maximals, then take over the Predacons and rule together... until Dinobot drops the charade and unceremoniously flushes the Pred out of the Axalon through a waste disposal unit. Back at the Predacon base, Cheetor continues to flee while avoiding fire from Waspinator. He sneaks away from the two long enough to hack the Predacons' data files, and determines that both bases sit on a common underground Energon vein, so an explosion at one base would cause a chain reaction that would obliterate both ships. Cheetor is discovered as soon as he downloads this data to a disk. At the Maximal base, Optimus confronts Dinobot on Cheetor's whereabouts. Dinobot tells him about the link and how the cat-bot has "surely" been destroyed by now, but convinces him that they could use the link to annihilate the Predacon base with the bomb, a plan Primal only agrees to as long as the bomb's timer is set with enough time to allow the Preds to evacuate. Just as the bomb is sent, though, Cheetor tosses the disk with the energon vein data onto the console, transporting both items simultaneously. The Predacons finally corner Cheetor, but the bomb has magnetically locked itself onto the Pred console, forcing Megatron to let him go so he can release it. With a few seconds left, Cheetor throws it up to Terrorsaur, who flies it out of the base (and is blown up with it), while Cheetor escapes through the link. The Predacons' errant shots destroy the console instead. Furthermore, his return trip to the Axalon shatters all of the survey posts he's planted, ensuring the link is severed for good. Afterwards, Rhinox and Rattrap congratulate Cheetor's prevention of the Maximal base from being destroyed by their own explosive, while Dinobot is in a bad mood as usual and leaves—though Cheetor apparently didn't tell anyone that Dinobot talked him into the whole thing. Primal still commands Cheetor to take more care to obey direct orders. Cheetor says he will—except when he doesn't—and scampers off, leaving Optimus steamed up with Rhinox and Rattrap to have a jolly laugh. But Optimus figures out Cheetor was funny, and gets in the jolly laugh with Rhinox and Rattrap. Transcript *Equal Measures/Transcript Category:Episodes Category:Beast Wars episodes